Even the wind makes a noise eventually
by f1anne1
Summary: A snapshot-style story covering Morro's childhood, from the moment Wu finds him, to the end. Mostly a character study of both Wu and Morro, with angst abound. Takes place pre-series, includes a few headcanons (namely selectively-mute!Morro). •cross-posted on tumblr (wkndwhp- i'm mod cole there)•


The day the young sensei Wu found the child digging through his trash was one he'd never expected. The man had seen thousands of years, experienced thousands of things, and yet it had never come to his mind that a scenario like this could come up.

The child couldn't have been more than ten, but his age was hard to tell with just how small and malnourished he was. His behavior was like that of a scared animal, skittish, fragile, and distant.

Wu watched him scarf down the food he'd left out for the third day in a row, his students peeking around him and out the gate at the sight with curiosity.

"Sensei, shouldn't we bring him in?" Asked one of them on the fourth day.

"We will, but we must give him time." Wu had replied, as he watched the boy scurry off, back down the mountain. He wasn't going far, he'd been hanging around, like a stray dog who'd learned where a restaurant dumped its waste. He'd be back at the gate tomorrow, just a few paces away, far enough for a headstart on escaping if need be, close enough to snatch up the food before it was taken from him by someone who wasn't there to take it.

Wu was a patient man. He would wait until the child was more comfortable.

It took a full week for the child to stop running off, for him to linger. Wu had studied him quite a bit in this time, and one thing he'd noticed is just how quiet he was, how hesitant he was to look at anyone for more than a moment, keeping his head down, letting his greasy hair drape over his face as if it hid him from view.

Dirt caked his hands, his arms and legs scraped up, and his clothing tattered.

He needed somewhere to go, to clean, to live.

This was only a child, after all.

Wu decided that the next day, he would approach him, and offer him the chance to come inside.

It was a lot like taking in a cat who'd lived outside its whole life. Wu left the gate cracked, and the child would wander in and out at will, staying in longer as his comfort grew.

Soon, he was sleeping inside the gate.

Wu made him up a room, seperate from his other students, closer to his own. The child was still skittish, he needed a pillar of support, and that would be Wu until he was okay on his own.

The child was bathed, clothed in something better, and fed. A silent, personal pledge was made: "I will keep this child safe."

He couldn't keep calling the boy by nothing, he needed a name.

Morro, he decided, as a lone hill, a mountain, isolated, was like he had once been.

Morro was still silent, going on a month living in the monastery. Hadn't said a word to anyone, even though he had integrated nicely.

Wu had begun to wonder if, perhaps, he was mute. It wasn't out of the question, of course, and he would find a way to communicate if he were.

And then one day, his wondering was put to rest.

"Morro, could you fetch my teapot?" Wu had been meditating, Morro sitting just across the room, silent and watching. He stood, slowly, and brought it over.

"Thank you." Wu took the teapot carefully, and poured himself a cup.

A quiet moment, then a hesitant reply. A voice Wu had wondered about for days.

"You're welcome."

Wu nearly spilt his tea.

Morro had begun to watch the students train, Wu noticed one day. He watched with curiosity, with a passion, a longing to do what they were doing. So he extended an offer.

"Morro, would you like to join in on the lesson?" His students paused, turning to look at the other, who shrunk back for a moment under the sudden attention.

"Um."

"It's alright, you can come and follow along."

Cautiously, Morro stepped forward, shrinking further still under the eyes of his peers.

"Class- look forward." The direction fixed that issue, as his students turned back to him, and Morro relaxed, taking up a space towards the back.

"Now, back to the lesson. What was I saying about quitting?"

Wu had a talent for spotting great potential, but sometimes that required pushing, maybe a bit harder than was considered kind.

Morro took a heavy hit, knocked down by an older student.

"Get up." Wu barked, sounding quite like his father to his own ear.

Morro didn't get up.

"Get up!" He repeated, and the child scrambled to his feet, meeting the other student's eyes for a moment. Wu didn't see the look of confusion on either of their faces as both of them realized that, for some reason, their sensei was being exceptionally hard on Morro. The lesson continued, as did the treatment. Harsh comments quipped at every mistake, corrections in amounts that the stars would envy.

And it continued on with every lesson after, Morro being pushed harder than the others for reasons no one was quite sure of.

Wu knew greatness when he saw it, and he knew how to push it out of someone.

Morro spent a lot of time sitting outside the gate, quietly watching the sky, eyes chasing kites as they flitted across the blue. Wu found him like that before class, as he often did, and he'd brought a gift. The boy had been around for a bit now, more than two months, and he'd been making great progress in his training with the extra pressure, yet, somehow, Wu felt they'd grown distant.

Maybe he was being too hard on him.

The gift was an attempt to try and mend.

When he handed Morro the kite, the reaction he'd gotten came in three steps:

Initial confusion, joy, then hesitation. Had Wu really pushed him that hard, that he'd doubt a gift? He nodded encouragingly, pointing up at the other kites, about to explain how to fly it before the teakettle went off and he had to go stop its whistling.

Morro held the kite a moment, then glanced to the sky, then back to the kite. Careful, he stirred the wind, as he'd been practicing in secret for years, the breeze lifting the kite up into the air. A stronger gust sent it higher, and he held it there, suspended in air.

That's how Wu found him a moment later.

The wind seemed to stir up something else aside from the kite, a memory, a wonder in Wu.

The color green suddenly seemed to make sense.

Green, huh? Morro would wear green one day- be the one who kept everyone safe? Morro barely understood, destiny a confusing concept, but one thing was clear: training was about to be ramped up. He had to keep up- he was green. Green and green and green and what if he failed? If he didn't live up to the expectations?

Memories of his past were few, but Morro remembered a bit.

The bit about his father- about the bitter noise and being chased off, no older than six, alone and alone and alone.

Morro could not fail.

The streets had never been kind- he never wanted to go back, and if he failed, oh God, if he failed he'd go back, wouldn't he? Only kept around for his potential- wasn't he?

Wu saw green and Morro _was_ green- _would be_ green.

Morro was good- stronger, faster, more resilient. He toppled the other students with ease, twelve years old with the spirit and force of a hurricane. Yet- Wu seemed displeased. What had he done wrong? He'd won, hadn't he? Anger bubbled up- he needed stronger opponents.

"Get up!" Morro yelled, tugging at the arm of another student, who cowered, pulling away, afraid of the storm in the green eyes staring him down. "Get _up!"_

" _Enough!"_ Wu had stepped down, off the steps, marching towards his prized student. If Morro was a hurricane, Wu was an apocalypse. He expected Morro to stop, to step away, but he didn't. He turned, defiant, to his sensei.

"But Sensei-"

"I said _enough."_

"When is 'enough' ever _enough_ in my training, Sensei?" His voice, never more than a whisper, always so hidden, was harsh and loud now. It shook, still, despite its certainty in the moment.

"You are _done_ for today, Morro. Room."

The other students watched, tense, as they stared one another down. A moment, then Morro turned, averting his eyes, and ran off to his room.

Wu began to wonder if he had been wrong- if green wasn't what he saw.

And yet training continued, and Morro grew stronger still, the deep rooted fear of rejection- of failing and being left- of the destiny he had been handed and forced to carry. Green, hm? He'd have to be good enough for green.

The day had come, a day Wu had been dreading, a day Morro had, with anxious breath, been looking forward to. Morro would be called Green and everything would be fine- Wu wouldn't leave him, because he'd be green- he _had to be he'd worked so hard to get here._

Wu smiled softly at his pupil, who strode into the room with sure steps, with fidgeting hands.

The weapons laid out. Morro closed his eyes, and stepped forward, surrounding himself with their golden light.

And it was silent.

Wu blinked, heaved a sigh.

Morro opened his eyes. _No no no no no._

"I'll train more- learn more lessons!" He couldn't have come all his way for nothing. He couldn't have spent so long, only for destiny to-

"Destiny has spoken." Wu was calm, his worries of an over-ambitious green ninja put to rest. It wasn't Morro, that was fine with him.

Anger, more than any Morro had ever felt, swirled like a cyclone in him. His sensei didn't _care._ He never had, had he? He'd only tolerated him for destiny's sake. Morro, voice rough around its edges, underused for years, raised to a shout.

" _Then I refuse to listen!"_ There was no way he could give up now- without a purpose, never having been given time for anything else but practice. Never having thought of the "what-if" enough to have a backup plan, Sensei so sure he wouldn't need one. No purpose, no need for him- would he be thrown back out? The wind howled outside, and Morro yelled with all the force he had, grabbing the screen door, throwing it, a gale force trapped in the dojo. "You made me _believe!"_

The room was a mess, his student having torn it apart then left in a whirlwind. Wu stood, stomach in knots, guilt dying his mind from green to grey.

Morro was his biggest regret.

When Wu entered Morro's room, he was greeted with a sight he hadn't expected. The boy, still a child, had packed a bag with only the essentials, the cloth he'd tied it all in torn from his old kite. He was leaving?

Better to leave than be kicked out, better to act as though you're okay when you want to cry, because Sensei trained you to be stronger than that.

Proving destiny wrong was no easy task.

One slip up, you're dead.

Morro clambered into the cave, older now, alone. How he'd made it to eighteen while testing fate time and time again he'd never know.

A sound rumbled from somewhere- one of the tests? The room smelled awful, sickening, heavy clouds of smoke and soot, the ground beneath his feet covered in pebbles that rolled and slid whenever he took a step. Surely it was here, right? If only he could see!

A wind whipped up the smoke, clearing it away, shaking lose the unsteady surroundings. A cave in- like fate had found the least climactic way to kill him. The boulders that tumbled down pinned his legs, the smog and noxious gas filling his lungs. Too much of that and he'd be dead- if only he could move these _damn rocks._

No breezes, no winds, nothing. He was pinned.

A slow death is what he deserved, he supposed.

A second per hour he'd wasted on this whole ordeal.

The cursed realm isn't what he expected- though he should have. The First Spinjitzu Master wasn't one to support people seeking out his tomb for personal reasons- for reasons going against destiny. Or maybe it was his years spent claiming to be the green ninja? His simple existence?

Cursed.

How fitting that ghosts were green.


End file.
